The Asheville citizen. [volume] (Asheville, N.C.) 1885-1889, 1887-11-30
A PROTEST.

| a PROTEST.
We give Col. J NJ. Ray the full benefit
of the following comment on paragraph
in Yesterdays CITIZEN sn certain events
which characterized the recent election
on the subject of Prohibition in Atlanta.
Our comments were based on tele-
graphic report, which noted scenes and
systems which also marked the election
on the same subject lately in Tennessee,
and eighteen months ago in Asheville.
For these comments we have not a
word of apology t. make. They were
inspired by that respect, reverence for,
and wetchfulness over welfare of woman
that animates every man in the South; a
watchfulness that attends her every path
and chIva!rously guards her against un-
seemly approach. 1t 10 this that has i'm
pelled US to warn, and to caution against
imprudence, lest permitted famIllarities
generate ideas of equality in those all too
ready to embrace this opportunity.
If our quotation from the telegram is
the subject of ofTense, we say that we
have availed ourselves to exceedingly
limited degree of similar material in cur
possession. Out Of regard to the ladies
engaged in the same cause here and else
where. we would not show to what
lengths the enthusiasm of the ladies of
Atlanta had carried them.
But if the gravamen of Col. Rays
charge is, as he quotes it, in relation to
the millennium, again We have not
word of apology. If the expressions con-
nected with the word "millennuim" the
Christian world connected over with ideas
of universal peace, harmony and puritJ
I,n fhan IL,
to say, as said Edward the 3rd, when,
dancing with the Countess of Salisbury
he picked up the garter she had dropped,
and fastened it on his own knee; and
then, struck by the angry glance of his
Queen, returning the garter to itE owner,
said, "Honi soft, qui NAL Y pense"-
Shame to him who evil thinks" So
much for the innocent use of a usually
! happily construed scripture quotation.
We publish the letter IS follows not
withstanding the needless and gratui
tious threat to send it to another paper
on or declining its publication:
AsHEvILLE, N. c.. Nov. 90, 1887.
Editors Citizen:
| Dear Sirs-In your issue of this date,
in an out of the way place on second
page, l find the following "The friends
of social equality at the North need not
despair of effeCting their aims at the
South. The Prohibition contests are
bringing things to that end sooner than
they had believed. when it comes to
pass that negroes are courted and ca
ressed-when white ladies run after
them and beseech their votes and their
favor-the "mllenium" does not seem
very far off. and the lion and the lamb
may soon lie down together"
do not know the author Of this unjust
criticism, "indecent fling" will say, but
charge him with one of three th.pgs-he
either did not consider the full import of
language uged, or was under the infu-
enoe of too much 'anti-prohibition," or
is wanting in the Instincts of a gentle
man.
l do not know personally a single
worker in the cause" in Atlanta, but
have no hesitancy in asserting, without
the fear of contradiction, that they were
the best women in the city, and as far
from any social equality IDEAS" or of
any act looking in that direction, as the
writer Of your article, and heknew it.
l cannot rest under such "slurs" upon
not only the good and true women of
Atlanta, but of AshGville and our whole
country, without entering my most SOL
enn protest and denunciatiUn.
Respectfully, Jas n. Raj.